Ah
by Alphabet Pie
Summary: Marluxia muses about the past, a long time ago when he, Larxene and Vexen were an unbreakable trio of friends. Friendship!41211. Oneshot.


_Ah._

Marluxia has been lying in bed for a long time when he sighs and rolls over onto his side, tapping the base of his bedside lamp to fill the room with a warm, soft glow. With one hand pressed against the smooth wood of the table, he leans down and pulls open one drawer. Inside is a leather bound book, which he heaves out and settles onto his lap. Almost automatically, he taps the lamp again, and the light in the room grows as he unfolds the first heavy, creaking page. There's his neat, calligraphic handwriting, the words almost childish as the him from a year or two ago tells how a tall, shadowy man saved him from the shadows and introduced him to _The Organisation_. He turns the page to a photograph, dog eared, sepia, of a man who was not quite unlike him, and next to him the restrained smile of his well defined face under a shroud of soft, pink hair. He wrote out the details of himself underneath like he'd actually forget. Next page and the introduction of Vexen. Vexen the way he _used_ to be, crooked grin and glittering eyes, Vexen with a bit of fondness in his expression, Vexen who was always willing to take a break from his work to talk or take him out to see a new world he'd been studying, Vexen whose eyes lit up like stars when he spoke about his research, Vexen who _laughed_.  
Soon after came Larxene with her childish exuberance, tactile and overfriendly, with a fierce determination that was both laughable and endearing. Marluxia turns a page or ten and comes across a photograph of his two favourite blondes - as he used to call them - and a journal entry beneath. Larxene had found Vexen one night and dragged him up to Marluxia's room where all three of them cuddled under the covers, an unlikely trio making the best of a bad job. Larxene had been sprawled across the chests of the two, much larger, men, and arms were loosely slung around shoulders and waists in some kind of friendly gesture of non-existent love. They'd talked for hours until Larxene fell asleep mid-sentence.  
Marluxia remembers that night well. But perhaps more, he remembers Vexen turning to him after a few minutes' silence, shoving Larxene out of the way and leaning over to give him a soft, gentle kiss. It never happened again, and Marluxia has always suspected that Vexen was slightly drunk on sleep deprivation at the time, but nonetheless it happened and Marluxia never forgot.  
Subconsciously, he raises a hand to his lips, and turns another page. Stargazing; Larxene pointing out all the prettiest stars, Marluxia telling the others of all the stories behind the constellations, Vexen, a true scientist, explaining away all the phenomena. It was a warm night, and with Larxene in his lap and Vexen leaning against his back with his chin resting on his head, Marluxia was sure that he felt true perfection. He smiles to himself as he effortlessly recalls every curve of Vexen's body, pressed against him, and the weight of Larxene's head on his stomach, her body resting heavily on his legs. It was a long time before he dared to think it, and he never said so even on paper, but he's sure that he loved those two.  
He flicks through the rest of the book, where the neat dates in the corner of each page slowly grow further and further apart, until there's a gap of months and more and only blank pages to follow.  
Vexen was the first to drift away; at first he stopped coming to find Marluxia and Larxene of an evening, under the pretence that he was "too busy, too busy". He stopped laughing and smiling. He became short tempered and grouchy, he began to hold grudges for the most ridiculous things. Marluxia recalls slinking around the shadows of the laboratory at three o'clock in the morning, watching Vexen work autonomously, like a robot, catnap for half an hour or less, and wake again to continue his work. Once, only once, he approached Vexen about his new research. Replicas, replicas, replicas. The spark in his eyes was gone, and all too easily, so was he.  
Larxene didn't leave, she changed. She'd always been a little brutal, kicking or punching too hard without realising, and falling about with laughter as she apologised. Now she doesn't apologise at all, just laughs, and Marluxia knows that she does it on purpose. She's given up on pretending to care.  
She made her first moves on Marluxia when Vexen left the group and at first he welcomed her to his bed with open arms, needing the distraction and comfort that Vexen was suddenly no longer there to provide. But Larxene bit and kicked and scratched, screamed dirty words in his ear as he took her, hard and brutal. Somehow, remembering her innocence at the beginning as he would tend to his wounds the next morning, it was worse. The old Larxene he knew and loved was gone, just like Vexen, gone. He began to make excuses, and she saw through every single one and just left, like that. Off to open up her legs to Axel, Marluxia supposes.  
His bed is a double now. Ever since that first night with the three of them crammed into his little single, he'd made the investment to buy a bigger bed. For a long time it was perfect, lots of pillows to prop each other up, lots of bedding to share (because they were all habitual duvet-hoggers), but now it seems sort of... naive. To think that because that was the way things were then they'd always be that way.  
Marluxia stares blankly at one of the empty pages in front of him, then snaps the book shut and returns it, flicking off the light and padding across the floor in the darkness. He fumbles a little for the door handle, but after this long he knows where it is, and he slips around it, his bare feet soon feeling the chill of the unheated corridor. He walks along walkways and down staircases, shivering, and eventually reaches the door to the laboratory where Vexen spends all of his time nowadays. He doesn't suppose that anybody should be in - it is two in the morning, after all - but there is indeed faint light emanating from the room on the other side of the door. Marluxia lifts his hand to enter, but voices stop him.  
"Please. One more day, I can finish it, I promise."  
It's Vexen. Vexen begging, and Vexen never begs for anything. Even back in the old days when Larxene and Marluxia used to gang up on him and tickle his feet until he cried, he would never beg. And yet here he is. Marluxia presses his ear to the crack between the door and the wall, and listens in.  
"That's what you said yesterday."  
It's Saïx, his voice cold and hard like a slap in the face.  
"I didn't anticipate the length of time required to-!"  
"Well, perhaps you should have done."  
"You can't expect me to be able to perfect everything first time around," Vexen hisses indignantly, a bit like the Vexen Marluxia remembers and thinks he knows. "These things take time, and testing-"  
Once again, Saïx interrupts.  
"You're making excuses, IV. Let me remind you who holds the Claymore and who is begging for forgiveness."  
Marluxia's eyes widen, unseen, and he turns sharply to peer through the crack. He sees glimpses of black on white, and there is the vicious spike of the Lunar Diviner's blade.  
"I'm sorry," Vexen chokes out. Marluxia uncomfortably twists his head to see the older man. He's pressed against a desk, chin tipped up by the lethal edge of Saïx's sword.  
"And so you should be."  
The sword drops and Marluxia realises that he's been holding his breath. He forces himself to relax, just a little, though he is still tense as a bowstring, watching and waiting.  
"You have four more hours. I want the replica complete by then."  
Vexen swallows thickly and nods. Marluxia hears the whisper of a portal and the remaining man drops to his knees, shaking.  
Marluxia imagines for a second that he could still stroll casually in, but he's frozen, hand still halfway up to the door handle, and he knows he can't move. Vexen has climbed to his feet, leaning heavily on the desk, and Marluxia sees him open a drawer to pull something out, tip out what looks like pills into his hand and knock them back with a glass of sterile tap water. Then he sets to work, out of sight.  
For a moment Marluxia is trapped between returning to his room, and walking into the lab, but his choice is made for him by the sound of footsteps echoing down the hall. Silently, the way he has been trained, he uses the door handle as a foothold to climb into the darkness, out of sight, just as Zexion appears around the corner, cup of something steaming in hand, opening that same door that Marluxia so wanted to just moments ago. He hangs around the doorway and Marluxia can clearly hear their conversation.  
"Vexen?"  
"Not now, Zexion. I have work to do."  
"You should be in bed."  
"I know."  
"I made you coffee."  
"Thank you. Just put it there."  
"How's the replica going?"  
"I still have both arms to attach, and-"  
There's the horrible sound of bones breaking, and Vexen swears more obscenely than Marluxia has ever heard him do so before.  
"_Fuck_."  
Zexion leaves the door hanging open.  
"Let me help you with that."  
They both fall into hard-working silence, and Marluxia uses the open door and opportunity to slink into the laboratory and skulk in the shadows. On a laboratory table lies the half-complete body of Saïx, Zexion and Vexen working together to attach the first arm. The second lies a little distance from its correlating shoulder, the joint a mixture of living, pulsing flesh and mechanical motors and wires. Marluxia watches in silence.  
It takes three hours to complete the body, and by that time Vexen is leaning heavily on everything around him, staggering as though drunk. Zexion is doing his best but this isn't his speciality and he needs Vexen to direct him. But still, neither of them refuse to give up, and they work hard as the clock ticks towards six o'clock to bring the replica to life. The whole time, his muscles straining, Marluxia stays up in the metal-barred ceiling, occasionally readjusting his position amongst bright strip lights and ventilation shoots, precariously balanced about the struts holding it all up.  
There are ten minutes to go when Vexen lays a hand on the replica's chest, drawing together the last reserves of his power to unfreeze the body, bringing it jolting to life. The replica's eyes snap open and for a moment stares directly at Marluxia, but soon considers him unimportant as he inspects his new body.  
Vexen collapses into the sleep of the utterly fatigued on the floor, and Zexion takes a moment to drag him into the corner before returning to Saïx, conversing with him in a voice too quiet for Marluxia to hear. Then he walks away, disappearing just moments before the real Saïx enters to find Vexen sleeping on the floor and the replica inspecting some bubbling experiment in the corner. He scoffs at the sight.  
"Pathetic."  
The replica follows him outside and it's only once he's gone that Marluxia allows himself to drop with a heavy thud to the floor. Vexen almost looks comatose slumped against the wall there, his eyes sunken and hollow. He doesn't wake as Marluxia lifts him into his arms - he's lighter than Marluxia remembers - and carries him back upstairs to his room. He looks dwarfed by the double bed, and Marluxia feels sharp pangs of nostalgia in his gut as he rearranges pillows and limbs to make him comfortable, yawning. It's all he can do not to wriggle close to Vexen's half-dead body as he climbs in next to him, and as the fringes of his vision turn black with sleep, he does wrap one arm around Vexen's chest. He doesn't wake until a lot later when Larxene roughly shakes him back to life.  
"Oi. You. Wake up."  
"Huh?"  
"Why didn't you tell me you were gonna be sleeping with Vexen? I'd have joined you, we could have had a threesome."  
Marluxia shoves her irritably away, untangling himself from his clutch on Vexen.  
"Don't be ridiculous. It's not like that at all."  
Larxene rolls her eyes, unperturbed, and climbs in anyway, making herself comfortable in the warm, heavy sheets. She rearranges a few pillows around her, manhandling Marluxia's arm to tuck herself in at his side.  
"This brings back memories, doesn't it? You, me and Vexen, back in the good old days."  
Marluxia mumbles something incoherent, and lets out a sigh.  
"'S he still asleep? Lazy git."  
"He was up until six o'clock this morning," Marluxia says reluctantly, glancing at Vexen's sleeping figure. "Trying to finish a replica for Saïx."  
"Oh," Larxene says, and reaches over Marluxia to pat Vexen's chest as though to reassure him. "Hey, I can feel his ribs."  
She rubs her fingertips over each bump until Marluxia pulls her hand away.  
"Don't," He whispers, not trusting his voice to be louder. Larxene frowns, and at first Marluxia thinks he's imagining it but there's worry in her eyes.  
"What happened to him?"  
Marluxia shakes his head, pulling both of them close. He's missed them so much, too much, and even if Larxene is different and Vexen has broken, he's grateful, so grateful to have them beside him again.  
"I don't know. Saïx was threatening him last night, and he looked exhausted-"  
"He _still_ looks exhausted," Larxene interrupts bluntly, but she's biting at her bottom lip now, showing more emotion than Marluxia remembers seeing in her for months. After that, he has nothing left to say. Larxene quietly continues to inspect Vexen's drawn, tired features, sometimes ghosting a hand over his cheeks as he sleeps on.  
"Is this what they reduced him to?" She eventually blurts out, anger in her voice. "Is this what they took him away from us for?"  
Marluxia is a little shocked by her words. He'd always assumed that Vexen had left of his own accord, grown bored of their childish antics and moved onto more "grown up" things.  
"I don't know," He says.  
"Well, he wouldn't exactly just go off by himself, would he," Larxene mutters sourly. "He _loved_ us, Marly, didn't you ever notice? We were like a son and daughter to him."  
"Nobodies can't love," Marluxia almost automatically intones.  
"Don't give me that," Larxene snaps. "I loved _you_, back before you became boring. And Vexen."  
"I became boring?" Marluxia echoes incredulously. "I wasn't the one always kicking and scratching. You became violent, and horrible."  
Larxene momentarily looks horrified, but her features soon settle into irritable petulance.  
"So _that's_ why you got all distant." She says. "You coulda told me you didn't like that kind of shit, I would have done something different for you. I thought that you were just getting brainwashed by the Organisation, like Vexen."  
A sardonic smile rises to Marluxia's lips.  
"I haven't changed."  
"You've become quieter. You kinda receded into yourself after Vexen left. You used to be a lot more boisterous." Larxene says, almost dolefully. Then, no louder than a breath, she adds, "I miss you."  
"Yeah," Marluxia says gently. "I miss you too."  
She cuddles him and they share a moment before Vexen twitches uncomfortably, startling them both into action, piling pillows up to prop him into a sitting position as he slowly, shakily, wakes.  
"Where am I?"  
"You're in my bed," Marluxia helpfully supplies. "You collapsed."  
"The replica-" Vexen says immediately, making to stand up but Larxene quickly pushes him back down.  
"It's with Saïx now."  
"It needs to be tested."  
"You've done all you can," Marluxia says firmly. "You need to rest."  
"I have work to do," Vexen tries to protest, but Larxene is on hand, sitting in his lap just like she used to and tucking her head under Vexen's chin, arms around his waist.  
"You're not going anywhere." She says fiercely.  
"But I-!"  
"If you're scared of Saïx," Marluxia interrupts, even though he knows that he shouldn't have known about their encounter in the small hours of that morning, "Then we can hold him off. He had no right to threaten you like that."  
Vexen sighs a little.  
"I never thought you'd be one for evesdropping, Marluxia."  
"Lay off the insults," Larxene snaps from her position on Vexen's chest. "We're your friends, Vexen, whether you like it or not, and we're not about to let Saïx and whoever else thinks they can use you take you away from us."  
To Marluxia's surprise, Vexen gives in and lets his eyes slide closed once again, one arm looping shyly around Larxene's hips. He joins in with what becomes a group hug, and it's odd but he feels so much more complete now, with his _two favourite blondes_, even if Larxene is a vicious little bitch now, and Vexen looks so fragile that he could simply snap if you held him too hard.  
They sleep together, well into the afternoon, until Vexen eventually stirs to life once more, knocking Larxene quite accidentally with her elbow. She, in turn, wakes Marluxia and for a moment they lie in silence, comforted by each others' presence.  
"You know," Larxene murmurs after a while as she wriggles one last time and lays still, "That offer on the threesome is still open."


End file.
